People are being taken from our communities and locked up in prison-like detention centres, without time limit, with no idea of when they might be released.
Why?
They just don’t have the correct immigration papers.

This is unacceptable.
This has to end.

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Worried about detention?

WHAT’S UP WITH DETENTION?

Almost 30,000 people are locked up in prison-like conditions every year, with no time limit on how long they can be held. Why? Simply because they do not (yet) have the correct immigration papers.

The majority of people detained are eventually released, but many never really recover from the trauma. It’s a terrible waste of money (£125 million a year), and a waste of lives.

Immigration detention is a wholly unnecessary, unjustifiable practice, one of the most harmful aspects of the UK’s “hostile environment” for migrants and a shameful civil rights abuse that cannot be ignored.

HOW ARE WE GOING TO END DETENTION?

A people-powered network

These Walls Must Fall is a growing network of groups, organisations, communities, people. People from all sorts of backgrounds but with one thing in common: a determination to end the injustice of immigration detention.

When you have these people, groups, organisations, communities, acting together, it all adds up to some serious people power. This is what it will take to convince the politicians that they must act to shut down the detention centres.

Get involved!

There are lots of ways that you can get involved in the These Walls Must Fall campaign.

To start off,sign up here. to show your support and receive campaign updates and alerts, national and in your area. And if you are a member of a community or faith group, a trade union, a political party or any kind of group or organisation, see if they can add their support to the campaign.

See the TAKE ACTION page for background information and campaigning materials.

Look out for campaign news and events in your area, spread the word on social media, with the #TheseWallsMustFall hashtag, and get in touch with questions, ideas, thoughts and suggestions

Worried about detention?

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What is detention?

Immigration detention is the government policy of locking up people who do not (yet) have leave to remain in the UK, or whose leave to remain has expired.

28,000 people are detained every year

and many thousands more are at risk of being detained at any time, without warning.

People are locked up in prison-like conditions

with guards, behind bars and barbed wire. This is nothing to do with any criminal offence; it’s a dark part of the immigration and asylum system. But unlike prison, people in detention have no release date to look forward to.

There is no time limit on detention

This means that when someone is detained they do not know if it will be for weeks, months, or years. Britain is the only country in Europe without a time limit.

Most people are eventually released – so why detain?

The majority of people in detention are eventually released into the community to continue their immigration or asylum applications, begging the question: why detain them in the first place?

Detention causes serious harm

Independent research has shown that detention causes harm to people’s physical and mental health. Vulnerable people deteriorate in detention, and people who were not vulnerable before become vulnerable.

Detention is outrageously expensive

The government spends around £164 million on detention every year. The human cost is immeasurable.

Detention cannot be justified

Immigration detention involves violence and fear and trauma. It is a wholly unnecessary, unjustifiable practice, one of the most harmful aspects of the UK’s “hostile environment” for migrants and a shameful civil rights abuse that cannot be ignored.